A tale of two countries - India Vs. Estonia

Giant Bharat - roaring economy rather than emerging economy Vs. the small Estonia

Readers might be thinking why out of nowhere we have come up and started discussing about a small country known as Estonia. This country is also know as the Baltic tiger.  Here we want the citizens of Bharat to learn a lesson or two from the tiger itself.

But before this critical analysis we would like to thank you for your support .

Me: Mentor, why have you woken me up in the middle of the night to discuss about Estonia?

Superman : You fool!  Learn from the past; those who don't know history should not condemn it.

Me: My mistake, Mr. Superman Sir.  I will come up with the analysis on Estonia.

Superman : Good luck old man!

  

Estonia is a country situated in the Baltic region of northern Europe with its capital city Tallinn. Estonia is governed by the democratic parliamentary republic form of government.  The official name of Estonia is Republic of Estonia. It is divided into 15 different areas with Tallinn as its capital.

Estonia is one of the least populous country in European zone. It is part of Schengen area. Its currency is Euro.  Post soviet disintegration, country has resurrected like phoenix. They have the economy of $23.11 billion and per capita income is also high at $ 17,561 (against $1,570 of India)

The country is enjoying a rank of 33 on HDI (human development index).  It is having quite low level of govt debt, which the country is using as a leverage for the development. They are enjoying the recognition of United Nations as well as world community for their remarkable growth.

It was really difficult for Estonia to maintain alliances post disintegration.  They had a mammoth task of development of the country.

Our Ethmotican analysis

The main reason for the growth of Estonia is that they heavily invested in the areas of information and technology and education in the mid 1990s. They started the programme Tiigrihüpe  (Estonian for Tiger Leap) for introduction of internet in schools and other educational institutions. This led to the access of internet to common people. Now government relies on this infrastructure for e-governance.

The advancement in the sector led to the development in the form of paperless banking and hassle-free loan sanctions.  As for submitting any document to the government departments, citizens have the required IT infrastructure and the same is done online (thus saving huge amount on paper costs and not to mention, the environmental advantages).  The development does not come cheap.  During 2007, Estonia was facing the issue of cyber terrorism but country fought against it bravely.  As per the statistics nearly 90% of the banking transactions in Estonia are wired as is the submission of the documents to the concerned ministries. Citizens submit their documents at the central database which will be accessed by the different government departments. This also helps the government in maintaining the central repository for the whole country. This is required for the implementation of the government-backed schemes at the grass root level.  Unlike in India, where a citizen has to taken multiple IDs like voting card, PAN card, passport, PRAN (pension regulatory account number) and the next-gen Aadhar card.

This is evident from the fact that the country of this stature is able to achieve wonders with implementation of  IT in every sector.

The issue of black money and excess money in the economy can be handled by the central bank with mere strokes of keyboards.

The development at the e-governance led to the inclusion of Estonia as the developed economy.  Estonia gained the passage of European Union easily.

Ethmotican analysis of growth

Hassle-free transactions 

Less redtapism among government departments

Data for analysis of implementation of government-backed scheme

Central bank is able to fight the menace of black money because of large number of wired transactions

More transparency for better governance.

The hassle-free credit sanctions lead to the growth of all the sectors

Indian context

India is a large country.  We don't have the level of the IT infrastructure that is being enjoyed by Estonia. but we are still the IT gaint of the world (or as we make the world believe!). We still have nearly 30-35 cities which are fully equipped with the required infrastructure. We will take an example of Delhi. If the Government of Delhi insists on e-submission of all kinds of documents, be it Aadhar card or a pass of DTC, then people will have to follow.

We will call these areas as "marked areas."  They should be out of control of the states even though the revenue generated will go to the state corpus but e-governance implementation will be under the control of the Centre.

Every citizen of the area will be digitized.  Even a penny earned by him/her should be under the governments radar.

How to implement?

Start with digitization of citizens, use existing infrastructure of Aadhar, NPR (National Population Register), and election commission.

Start non e-transaction taxes . If a customer deals with more than the stipulated number of transactions directly through the banking system then put a flat banking transaction tax on the amount.  This will encourage people to start using existing internet banking infrastructure.

For companies, make it mandatory as a part of ISO certification.

For individuals make it mandatory for issuance of passport.

The government departments will also be under this ambit as these departments have been enjoying full access to the banking system.  These departments have been issuing the account payee cheques to various citizens every now and then.  Why don't they use the internet banking facility and this will also solve the issue of the agency clearing and a hell lot of time and expensive stationery. Income-tax, commercial tax, and sales tax departments can be kept out of the ambit since they DO have to deal with the banking system on a day-to-day basis but local hospitals, courts, revenue office, etc. should be mandatorily made to use the IT banking systems.

We have to geographically demarcate the areas before implementation of this functionality.

Takeaway benefits of this implementation:

Population

The migration from villages to the metro cities will be checked. For migration to the major cities a person should be digitized and his/her ID is to be transferred to the metro city. He has to use this ID to book tickets of bus or railways and the ID will be transferred only if the person is having required skill and he/she is having an offer letter from a company.  This will be more like a work permit.

Rationale:

The existing infrastructure of the cities are not sufficient for the number of citizens staying in the cities. This will help the local government to plan accordingly and the migration will be checked.  This will also help in generation of skilled workforce who wants to work in these cities.  Moreover, the citizen will not be a burden on the government as he/she will be earning his/her own bread.  If large number of people migrate from one area then it will put pressure on the local government to start facilities and infrastructure at the place which will act as a stimulus for the growth.

Economy

The creation of different business centres boost different sectors. As the red-tapism will be less, the state governments will compete with each other for growth of various sectors. This will lead to creation of large number of jobs.

Rationale

As the pressure at the state will be intense because of migration, states will have to come up with various offers for industry majors to open the industry in their state. Since credit facilities will be easily available, this will increase the confidence of business community. This will also lead to overall development of the state and Bhartiya economy.

Revenue

As every citizen is digitized, a penny earned by him/her will be under the radar.  All the transactions will be online which will eradicate the menace of black money from the system.

Rationale & benefits

Curbing of black money, higher number of jobs, higher purchasing power and large number of business centres. This will increase the revenue for the government.

We at ETHMOS believe that implementation will be difficult but it is not impossible.

When going gets tough, the tough gets going.

Happy ETHMOS

The making of a Scientist in India Vs. Developed Nations - An Ethmos Perspective.- PART I

We hope you have gone through our previous articles regarding research funding through banks and the quality of research in Bharat.  After giving much thought to the state of affairs at our research institutions and institutions of higher learning vis' a vis' developed nations, we got so frustrated that we decided to write something regarding how all these great achievements are accomplished by our research institutions.  So here goes:

First we will take a look at how things actually need to be done and are being done at the developed countries like the USA, UK, Germany, etc. which give utmost priority to original research and innovation.  A scientist is made right at the schooling stage in those countries.  Every child is a scientist - s/he likes to explore his surroundings and environment and learn through that process only.  This quality of children is nurtured right from the pre-schooling stages in the developed countries and the nurturing continues throughout the schooling and college education wherein lectures are not taken as class periods of 30-45 minutes and a monotone is sung by the teachers while the students doze off in harmonic motion every 5 to 10 minutes.  The children are given real-life projects, told to explore their environment, probe everything that they are curious about, read and study about new developments in the fields that they wish to choose as their profession.  In those countries, there are no "scientists" but biologist, chemist, entomologist (insect specialists), microbiologist, biochemist, physicist, mechanic, etc. and all professions are seen with more or less equal respect with the quality of living near about evenly distributed among the populace.  The students are encouraged to take up research projects right at the schooling stage and involve in original innovation and encouraged to share their ideas freely, thus resulting into a overall positive and open atmosphere where creative inventions are born.

Now we look at how great we are doing in our very own Bharatvarsh which invented ZERO and are still extremely good at multiplying zeroes (no pun intended).  Over here, our children are our biggest "investment" which have to be liquidated after they get a decent job (look after your parents) and of course, there are only THREE jobs in this whole spherical world - DOCTOR,  ENGINEER, and OTHERS.  And once your child is in school, he is not supposed to (1) ask curious questions that are out of syllabus and which the teacher has told that it won't come in the exams (2) not study foolish comics other than your textbooks (3) play around or fool around by doing stupid desi inventions like making a bow and arrow out of broom sticks {I personally used to love it!!!}.  And you are supposed to (1) attend school and tuitions and the number of tuitions required was derived using a simple formula wherein you multiply the number of subjects with one and multiply the answer with two to get get the number of study hours required after school hours (2) copy-paste whatever has been done in school class from a book called C.W. (Class Work) to H.W. (Home Work)  (3) make sure the teacher is always happy and is not irritated with questions she does not know or care to know the answers to and most important (4) DO NOT THINK ON YOUR OWN.

So, now our Bhartiya child comes into the most important phase of his educational life called the Higher Secondary Boards or class XII as we call it.  Now, apart from school + tuitions, he has to attend specialized coaching for the Olympics called PMT/PET with all its hues and colors from different states and also a common exam at the central level.  And IF, and it is a big IF, you don't clear it - It is definitely and absolutely the end of the world for everybody on this planet - so now you are the saviour of this planet and you have to do it for this planet's sake.  Our Bhartiya child has already succeeded in killing his enthusiasm, curiosity, innovation, creativity, and the beautiful but useless spark in his eyes.  And hence, definitely he fails to clear these dreaded exams and ends up being the biggest disappointment in his entire family history and will be talked about how he has ashamed his entire previous and forthcoming generations.  Since he is used to all these insults and crushings, he just accepts his fate and goes and joins a "normal" science college which is the ONLY other option left according to his genius multi-talented parents since the world does not require any lawyers, bankers, administrators, drivers, soldiers, cops, businessmen, or anything and the only two people they take help during their routine lives are the mighty engineer and the divinely doctor.

We will continue the story of our brilliant scientist in our next part since we don't want our readers to sleep away reading this interesting story.

Thanks and happy Ethmos to all.

Partnership of India Railway and financing of Indian Railway Projects at Border Areas - SUPPLEMENTARY ETHMOTICAN VIEW

After our previous article on the Indian Railways from one of the best Ethmotican, here is another supplementary view by another Ethmotican neuropath:

We should learn from China and Russia with respect to the development of rail and road connectivity.  Both of these countries have one of the roughest and the most inaccessible terrains in the world and to connect these geographical monsters to the mainland of the country is nothing short of an engineering marvel and work of sheer human genius and determination.  How they did this was through "cluster development."  As you would be knowing that development of one sector cannot take place in isolation, i.e. just building railway tracks is not possible and not advised when you do not have properly maintained railway stations, water and electricity connections to all the stations, proper accommodation facilities for workers/staffs/etc.  So, these countries used to take small patches of areas, say of the size of a small taluka or village and used to do the complete development of that area, i.e building of schools, hospitals, government offices, banks, service centers, and most importantly ROADS - all using the help of locals only which gave employment opportunity to the local people thus preventing any sort of revolts or accusations of snatching away the land by the government or private parties.  And this they used to do in a time period of 6 to 9 months and once the same was done, especially building up of roads, then the linking of railway tracks was more or less a cake walk.  And please note that this development was done simultaneously by government teams for 7 to 10 areas in a stretch so that at least 1000 km of line could be covered in 1 year's time.

If we also implement such strategies and use our District Collectors and local government machinery for this, then this can definitely be achieved.  But this will only happen when we bring to a halt the corrupt mechanisms of the government by which tenders are given to hopeless contractors who overbill the government by doing no work and eat away the tax payers money.  Concurrent audit should be made mandatory in all government departments and the audit should be done by both CAG as well as independent external agencies like Ethmos to generate transparency in the dealings of the government and to instill confidence in the public that the money from their sweat and blood is being utilized for their own development.

These are the views of a stupid idealist who can DIE for his ideas.

HAPPY ETHMOS TO ALL.